Cohiba Siglo II has come right

I had one of these a month or two ago in the Coromandel, and they had lost all the harsh intensity of youth in the second half and smoothed out to an intense, rich cafe au lait flavour. We're talking somewhere in between macchiato and piccolo here - it can definitely take on your long black mano-a-mano (the coffee pictured above was my 2nd so technically it won 2-1). 

A first ...

Our first ever boite de Quai d'Orsay just arrived safely...May 2014. We have had singles a few years ago. The only downside is that these are well known to be vastly improved with age. Hopefully these ones will be precociously mature ! 

Legacy Nicaraguan: Perdomo 20th Anniversary Maduro

Until Greg "Dapper Dan" F arrived at my doorstep on Christmas eve, it had been a pretty lean year for cigar smoking... mainly due to the unholy duality of children and work squeezing it out.

Below is part of the proof that two aficionados on holiday together, if sufficiently dedicated, can bring the order of things back into happy equilibrium.

In any case, the weather is a bit blah today [ed: well a few weeks ago now], warm, cloudy and a bit muggy. Even the cricket is on hold. Eggs, bacon and black pudding washed down with coffee inspired me to dig for a large cigar to spend the afternoon with (my dad has re-trained me well). When it arrived a couple of years ago, this Perdomo was one of the finest examples I'd had of a balanced, medium bodied Nicaraguan (well full bodied relative to Cubans!), pushing out powerful meat and chocolate. Quite similar to that monstrous Liga Privada T52 torp we shared in Gisborne, once upon a time.

A couple of years down the track, I had little to no expectations of it, as poorly as these Nics age. It has definitely lost some of its all-out chocolate appeal, but surprised me with its lighter but still balanced and interesting profile. Cedar, seared steak, and cocoa with a touch of sweetness are now on an even keel. This Perdomo has done well. As my son remarked, it is a pretty big cigar, and it's quite a nice change to get the coolness of smoke that this sort of vitola can provides (well, for the first half at least). Saves having to fetch a drink, for one! 

Boxing Day

Gregs crowning Glory - a Punch double Corona

Another brick in the wall...

Scott smoking a H Upmann mag 48 EL

The T Rex approach to cigar cutting

When I told Matt to bite the end off his cigar, I wasn't expecting half of it to get torn off with a grunt. "Nibble on a nipple... Not chomp off a chunk" once said a wise Chinese sage. Greg adds "a breast without a nipple is pointless!"

The Punch Punch batch

The next batch has been out for a while and the novelty is in the Punch.

If you've been a heretic long enough, you have had the now-discontinued Punch Royal Selection no.12 (a small one), a massive Punch Double Corona, and now it is time for the Punch Punch. Why the repetition, you may ask? It was named in Cuba, so who knows... a bored marketing director? the one-two combo of the cigar world?

The good news is that this Corona Gorda (46rg x 14.3cm) is really good straight out of the box (2013), mild and with a lovely and quite distinctive creamy cloves flavour. I had it with a light whisky on a hot day but could happily have smoked it right the way through without a drink. Hopefully it will keep growing and not recede with age... great stuff.

- Some Pot luck cigars to finish off boxes and...
- H Upmann Magnum 48 EL 2009: they are earthy with a bit of cocoa/coffee grinds and the Upmann woods in the back ground and need to be smoked now before they run out of flavour
- H Upmann Magnum 46: aging well with more savouriness (dixit Scott)
- Bolivar Petit Corona: well known but I'd like to hear your thoughts as I've yet to have one from this new box.
- Punch Punch

Smoking (and drinking) the Great Wall

with Jianlong, the Tiger from Singapore

...and Kosal, da Fonz from Cambodia

Verdict: the wine was actually ok, and the cigars almost passable (and we had to chop off the paper filters which you can see in the photo)

Cohiba club in Dujiangyan, Sichuan

On a bridge near the top of the 3rd century BC irrigation system...

Matt Mag 48 n Xav Mag 46

a well travelled batch

Ah ha yes you have waited and they have landed and now they are coming your way after approximately 55000kms of travel since Cuba - how's that for food mileage?

I would note that they are probably suffering a bit after all that, a bit dry, I'd give them at least 10 days in your humidor before smoking.

This batch is:

- Trusty Cohiba Club: the last one left

- Bolivar Petit Corona: oh the mighty wee one has returned in a freshly minted 2013 box. We know how good these get with 2-3 years on them, but also how good they are raw and powerful straight out of the box, pull out your finest scotch and enjoy.   

- H Upmann Magnum 48 E.L. x2 : special editions from 2009 that are wonderful cigars, all the woody richness of the standard H Upmann (compare with your Mag 46s) with your Edicion Limitada aged maduro wrapper to provide that cocoa goodness. They have reached their peak so I have sent 2 per Heretic.

- Cohiba Siglo II: a carefully selected box of these Cohiba Petit Coronas. We have never actually had any of the standard Cohiba line-up because of value for money issues but there's a first for everything. The Siglo line was actually a 1992 addition to the marca to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus arrival. They are all built around a distinctive hay / grass richness with a touch of honey, and tend to have cafe au lait overtones. Apart from the Trinidads they are the only brand to have triple fermented tobacco. I tried one and they are definitely enjoyable now but the last third is still a bit young and harsh, and will smooth out with age... over to you.

On work, cigars, and an unhappy conjunction thereof

Friday morning, sitting on top of the ferry as it crosses the shimmering waters of Te Whanganui a Tara, and soaking up a lovely sunny day... life is good.

Perhaps I should've stopped there.

As i walked past a mag shop that also happens to sell cigars, I pushed out my luck boat a bit too far and thought i'd get a little one to accompany some laptop work later in the morning.

I just wanted one of those tiny cohiba clubs - but they only sold them in packets of 20 for $110. Ha ha (you can get them for US$30 or so overseas). So I got a Jose Piedra, very cheap cubans, must've been just smaller than a petit corona, for $14 (goes for about $3 duty free). In my haste I forgot that these ones have notoriously poor construction, and that unlike our carefully selected club boxes on average a third of them are not actually smokeable.

So later that morning, went down the hill to pick up a shlong (halfway between short and long black, that's what the local cafes call it unfortunately, how quaint) and head down road to the church park for a puff... St Mary of the Angels, soaring above our all-too-common humanity, but closed for seismic strengthening. How grounding.

The park too was covered by a pall, the gloomy shadow of the skyscraper towering above them, astronomically aligned so as to deny warmth to every nook and cranny - but only at that precise conjunction of time and season. I grumbled and sat down, resigned to my fate, and slurped on my shlong as I imagined a thousand office workers jeering down at me from the myriad lidless compartments of their monstrous glass panopticon. When faced with a thousand mirrors, the resentment of the mind's eye can be projected both ways, you see... But only a real obstacle can physically cast a shadow: perception is not everything. Fortunately, I was saved from the oppressive serenity of this foucauldian faceoff when the local groundsman fired up his lawn mower. At least here in the roaring 40s the fumes never have time to hang around.

I lit up my little friend JP to compete. Correction: I sucked and I sucked and I sucked ... and just managed to stir the flame into action. !Vamos Jose! No joy... Jose did not put out easily...what a drag. Having massaged my way round to find a rock hard hernia almost half way up from the band, I reluctantly proceeded with emergency surgery of the roughest kind. Using only my teeth. Off with his head! (and half of his torso). His intestines hung ragged and limp from the remainder, which i reluctantly placed between my lips. A true tobacco connaisseur should always chew on the bowels of his cigar, and develop a feel for its terroir... *cough* (it is perhaps worth noting that most chewing tobacco was historically made from cigar clippings). Unfortunately, el pequenito Jose, now drawn, quartered and complemented by 2-stroke oil fumes, was still reluctant to put out. I soldiered on for a few painful powder-puffs and gave up. No work done, no cigar-centred jouissance, nothing gained.

Sometimes it's best to quit while you're behind.

Poker in the Tower on the Hill

A toke in te Tai Tokerau

Your special correspondents Xav "El Grande Heresiarca" and Greg "Dapper Dan" go the extra mile to penetrate the mysteries of the Por Larranaga Panatela, in another exotic location.

In a Marxist-tinged summary, one could say that we enjoyed a grunty cedar, cocoa and coffee grind base with cocoa on the ascendant... enhanced with an incisive orange peel, cinnamon, and harissa (or perhaps cayenne pepper) superstructure. Put all this together and you have a two course moroccan dinner washed down with turkish coffee. So where Henry Clay found peace, we found a taste of the Middle East... in Por Larranaga. For such a small, relatively young (2-3 years old) cigar, it really was rich and intriguing. It really is such a shame that many of them are stricken with tight draws and knots at the top (around the band). 

Fortunately, this one was gastronomic poetry in motion... proving once again that sitting down and concentrating on a good cigar is food for the mind, the soul, and the 6 senses. Tihei mauri ora!!!

Daze bay in El hoyo de Monterrey